Pauline Boss University of Minnesota
The Context and Process of Theory Development:
The Story of Ambiguous Loss
This is the story of how the theory of ambigu-
ous loss was born—the context of time and space
in which it developed; the misunderstandings,
clarifications, and corrections; and now, the the-
ory’s cultural updates. From an early interest in
family stress theory, I coined the term ambigu-
ous loss to name a previously unidentified stres-
sor common to families everywhere. Discovering
this phenomenon and developing the theory has
been a lifelong process, but with a new gener-
ation of scholars, the theory continues to build
and improve. This narrative is my tribute to a
new generation of scholars, many of whom are
testing the theory and broadening its applica-
tion across cultures, disciplines, and types of
ambiguous loss. May this account also stimulate
the building of other useful theories of the mid-
dle range that include, without bias, the broad
diversity of families today.
Scientific discoveries happen not through method
or magic, but from being open to discovery, by
listening to one’s emotions, and responding to
intuition. Like a poet, the researcher as well as
the therapist needs the ability to imagine what the
truth might be. Each tests it, but in a different
way. The poet words a couplet, the therapist tries
a strategy, and the researcher tests hypotheses.
A theorist, however, must be aware of all three.
(Adapted from Boss, 1987b)
Professor Emeritus, Department of Family Social Science,
University of Minnesota, 1985 Buford Avenue, 290
McNeal Hall, St. Paul, MN 55108 (pboss@umn.edu).
Key Words: Ambiguous loss, boundary ambiguity, family
stress, no closure, resilience, theory building.
Journal of Family Theory & Review 8 (September 2016): 269–286
DOI:10.1111/jftr.12152
Like a Möbius strip, theory building is a pro-
cess that never ends. Family theories especially
must be tested continually to determine their rel-
evance for the ever-shifting context of family
life. Although theory developers are expected to
test their own theories, it is even more impor-
tant to have others, less invested, continue and
expand the testing. This special issue is a trib-
ute to a new generation of researchers who are,
in new ways, testing and applying what is now
called the theory of ambiguous loss. By improv-
ing its relevance across cultures, contexts, and
circumstances, their work and that of others pre-
viously published, continues this necessary and
unending process.
My task here is twofold: to tell the story
of how the term ambiguous loss and the the-
ory originated; and second, to update what has
been discovered since its inception to clarify and
improve the theory. In telling this story, much
of it personal, I hope to encourage others, espe-
cially students and new researchers and practi-
tioners, to value theory as a coherent guide and
to be open to new discoveries, not just about
ambiguous loss, but also about easing the stress
and suffering of families wherever they are.
In a nutshell, with more details to follow, the
idea of ambiguous loss began in the 1970s, when
I was a graduate student at the University of
Wisconsin–Madison. My first construct was psy-
chological absence, then physical absence, both
of which morphed into boundary ambiguity, and
finally in the mid-1970s, upon recommendation
from a wise professor who pressed for more
abstraction, I coined the term ambiguous loss.
The first research upon which the theory of
ambiguous loss was built took place in the early
269
270
1970s with families of pilots who had been
declared missing in action (MIA) during the
Vietnam War (Boss, 1977, 1980b). The sec-
ond major testing occurred in the 1980s with
families of veterans diagnosed with Alzheimer’s
disease (Boss, Caron, & Horbal, 1988; Boss,
Caron, Horbal, & Mortimer, 1990; Caron, Boss,
& Mortimer, 1999). On the basis of both sets
of research, I wrote the book Ambiguous Loss
(1999), which argues that the phenomenon of
ambiguous loss exists and that it leads to bound-
ary ambiguity, a continuous variable, which pre-
dicts family conflict and personal symptoms of
depression and anxiety. Today it is translated
and read around the world by researchers and
professionals across disciplines, as well as the
general public. In 2006, following my work
with families of the missing in New York City
after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on
the World Trade Center, as well as my family
therapy practice (Boss, 2002a, 2002b, 2004b),
I wrote a book for academics and profession-
als, Loss, Trauma, and Resilience (2006), which
extends the theory and answers the question of
how to treat or prevent the negative effects of
ambiguous loss.1 Today, this book, also trans-
lated, is used globally to guide and test inter-
ventions after disasters such as earthquakes and
tsunamis, kidnappings, political disappearances,
and in 2014, the mysterious disappearance of
Malaysia Airlines flight 370—as well as more
ordinary ambiguous losses. In 2011, I wrote Lov-
ing Someone Who Has Dementia for family care-
givers whose loved ones have dementia. This
book is also translated and used internationally.
Overall, it appears that the term ambiguous loss
is now part of a global lexicon.
The Theory of Ambiguous Loss: An
Overview
Definitions
Ambiguous loss is defined as a situation of
unclear loss that remains unverified and thus
without resolution (Boss 1999, 2007). There are
two types of ambiguous loss: Type 1 is physical,
and Type 2 is psychological (see Figure 1).
With physical ambiguous loss, families do not
1 For more details, see Boss (1999), which introduces
the theory, and Boss (2006), which expands the theory for
professionals and researchers and includes six guidelines for
intervention.
Journal of Family Theory & Review
know where their loved ones are or whether
they are dead or alive. A person is physically
absent, yet kept psychologically present because
there is no proof of death or permanent loss.
Families call this “gone, but not for sure.” The
second type of ambiguous loss is psychological:
A family member is physically present, yet
psychologically missing, as a result of some
cognitive impairment or memory loss from
illness, injury, addiction, or obsession (see Boss,
1999, 2006, 2011). Family members refer to this
type of ambiguous loss as “here, but not here.”
With both types of ambiguous loss, people must
construct their own meaning of the situation
within a paradox of absence and presence (see
Boss, 2007).
The stressor, ambiguous loss, leads to a per-
ceptual variable called boundary ambiguity; it
is defined as not knowing who is in or out of
one’s family system, and thus there is incongru-
ence among individual perceptions about family
membership and roles. Is the missing person ever
coming back? Do we keep his or her roles open
until we know for sure? Am I still married if my
spouse has been missing for years? Am I wife
or widow? Am I still the child if I am parenting
my parent who no longer knows who I am? Such
questions indicate ambiguity about who is in or
out of the family system. While family bound-
aries are never absolutely clear, a high degree of
boundary ambiguity is a risk factor for individual
and family well-being.
To differentiate further between ambiguous
loss and boundary ambiguity, it helps to see
where these constructs fit heuristically into the
Contextual Model of Family Stress (CMFS)
(Boss, 2002c, 2004b; Boss, Bryant, & Mancini,
in press) (see Figure 2). Ambiguous loss is the
stressor (A factor), which leads to boundary
ambiguity (C factor), the perceptions of the
ambiguous loss by individual family members
as well as the family as a whole. Boundary
ambiguity is a continuous variable that predicts
the outcome (X factor), with a high degree
being immobilizing, systemically and relation-
ally. Congruent with the recursive CMFS model,
the process of struggling with ambiguous loss is
also circular and continuous.
The Premise
The basic premise is this: Ambiguous loss is
the most stressful type of loss because it defies
resolution. Unlike with death, there is no official
Theory Development: The Story of Ambiguous Loss
Figure 1. Two Types of Ambiguous Loss.
PHYSICAL
ABSENCE
with
Psychological
Presence
Examples:
War, terrorism (missing soldiers,
civilians)
Natural disasters (missing persons)
Kidnapping, hostage taking
Desertion, disappearance
Missing body (murder, plane crash,
lost at sea)
Incarceration
Immigration, migration, expatriation
Foster care, adoption
Divorce
Work relocation
Military deployment
Young adults leaving home
Mate or child moving to care facility
verification of loss and thus no finality with
rituals of support. Instead, people are often crit-
icized for not “finding closure” and left on their
own to cope, isolated and trapped between hope
and despair, with lingering grief that is often
unfairly diagnosed as personal or family pathol-
ogy (Boss, 1999, 2006, 2007).
Underlying Assumptions
Family theories are social constructions
because the knowledge on which they are
based is influenced by one’s context. They
are more subjective than objective. Given
this stance—and influenced early on by
Gouldner (1970), who called for revelation
of assumptions—the following underlie the
theory of ambiguous loss:
271
PSYCHOLOGICAL
ABSENCE
with
Physical
Presence
Examples:
Alzheimer’s disease or other dementia
Traumatic brain injury
Autism
Coma
Chronic mental illness
Addictions: drugs, alcohol, gambling
Depression
Complicated grief
Homesickness (immigration, migration)
Preoccupation with lost person, with work
Obsessions: computer games, Internet
Gender transitioning (also physical absence)
1. A phenomenon can exist even if it cannot be
measured.
2. With ambiguous loss, we assume that truth is
not attainable and thus is relative. Instead of
the usual epistemological questions, we ask
how people manage to live well despite the
absence of truth. Many do, and we learn from
them.
3. Ambiguous loss is a relational phenomenon;
it assumes attachment to the missing per-
son. The theory is thus useful for studying
couples and families as well as other close
relationships.
4. Cultural beliefs and values influence how
individuals, families, and communities
tolerate ambiguous loss, as well as how
they perceive it. We assume the primacy of
272
Figure 2. The Contextual Model of Family Stress.
Source: Adapted from Boss (2002c).
perceptions but are aware that they are not all
that matters.
5. With ambiguous loss, the source of pathol-
ogy lies in the type of loss and not in the
type of grief (Boss, 2010, 2012a, 2015a; Boss
& Carnes, 2012; Boss & Dahl, 2014; Boss,
Roos, & Harris, 2011).
6. With ambiguous loss, closure is a myth.
Without finality, the loss and grief may con-
tinue indefinitely, for years or a lifetime, and
even across generations (e.g., slavery, the
Holocaust, genocide, war, terrorism, forced
migrations).
7. People cannot cope with a problem until they
know what the problem is. Naming the stres-
sor as ambiguous loss therefore allows the
coping process to begin.
8. If a loss remains unclear and ambiguous, it
is still possible to find some kind of mean-
ing in the experience. This requires a new
way of thinking, one that is not binary, but
dialectic. For example, “She is both gone,
and maybe not”; “He is both here and also
gone”; “My kidnapped husband is probably
Journal of Family Theory & Review
dead—and maybe not”; “My grandfather who
has dementia is still here but also gone.”
9. With ambiguous loss, resilience has a specific
meaning; that is, resilience means increas-
ing one’s tolerance for ambiguity. Ambigu-
ous loss theory, built on the CMFS (see
Figure 2; Boss, 1987a, 1988, 1999, 2002c,
2004b, 2006, 2014; Boss et al., in press),
assumes a natural resilience in families (Mas-
ten, 2007, 2014), but we assume that the tol-
erance for ambiguity can be influenced by the
family’s cultural beliefs and values.
10. Core to the theory of ambiguous loss is the
assumption that families can be both physical
and psychological entities and that both are
sources of resilience. A psychological family
is the family in one’s mind. It comprises loved
ones near or far, related or not related, alive
or dead. The psychological family is made up
of the people we lean on (physically or sym-
bolically) in times of adversity or celebration.
For example, a bride and groom light candles
at their wedding to symbolically acknowledge
the presence of deceased parents; a student,
Theory Development: The Story of Ambiguous Loss
far away from home, texts or phones a par-
ent for help. A traveler is invited to the home
of strangers to celebrate a religious holiday
they all value. Or close friends become fam-
ily for one another in lieu of biological fam-
ilies who are unavailable or unsupportive. To
assess the presence of a psychological fam-
ily, we ask the following questions: Who is
there for you now? Who is there for you in
times of sadness or joy? Who do you want to
be present at your special events—birthday,
graduation, wedding—or holiday gatherings?
Who can you call when you need help?
Cross-culturally, the answers vary, and often
surprise. Recently, I learned that many fami-
lies who survived the earthquake and tsunami
of 2011 in Japan find comfort in the belief that
their ancestors are looking after their missing
loved ones (Boss & Ishii, 2015). Once again,
I was reminded that the psychological family
manifests itself differently across cultures.
These 10 assumptions anchor the theory of
ambiguous loss. They alert you to what is to
come. While I aimed for assumptions that would
be inclusive across cultures, I was always aware
that my own experience and context were influ-
encing my thinking.
Effects
The effects of ambiguous loss are viewed dif-
ferently on the basis of one’s discipline or train-
ing. From a sociological perspective, the clarity
needed for boundary maintenance is unattain-
able. The problem is structural—not knowing
who is in or out of the family circle—and thus
leads to a high degree of boundary ambiguity.
Roles may be unfilled, decisions delayed, tasks
undone, and all too often, rituals and celebra-
tions canceled. The family and its members are
immobilized.
From a psychological perspective, the res-
olution of loss and grief is impossible without
knowing the status of a loved one as absent or
present, or dead or alive (Boss, 1999, 2004b).
Ambiguous loss is problematic psychologically
when feelings of hopelessness and helpless-
ness lead to depression. It is also a problem
psychologically when conflicted feelings of
ambivalence lead to guilt, anxiety, and immo-
bilization. Overall, however, and whatever
the discipline, people experiencing ambigu-
ous loss are immobilized both socially and
psychologically (Boss, 1999, 2004a, 2006).
273
Interventions
Dialectical thinking. People often respond to
ambiguous loss with absolute thinking, either
acting as if the missing person were definitely
dead or denying the loss and acting as if nothing
has changed. Neither binary is helpful. Instead,
I recommend dialectical or both–and thinking
(Boss, 2006). That is, the only way people can
lower the stress of ambiguous loss is by holding
two opposing ideas in their minds at the same
time, for example, “He’s both dead, and maybe
not,” or “She’s both here, and also gone.”
A granddaughter told me that such both–and
thinking reminded her of the thought exper-
iment by physicist Erwin Schrödinger, called
Schrödinger’s cat. Theoretically, a cat is placed
in a closed box containing a lethal substance that
may or may not activate. Because no one knows
whether the cat is alive or dead until he or she
opens the lid, the cat is thus simultaneously, for
that period of time, both alive and dead (Gribbin,
1984).
She was right—but just partly. With ambigu-
ous loss, a similar paradox exists about the pos-
sibility of both life and death, but here there is
no box to open. For the families of the missing,
the mystery continues without end. For them, the
box may stay closed forever.
Six guidelines. Because an ambiguous loss may
never be clarified, the goal of intervention is
resilience—the resilience to go the distance, the
resilience to live well despite “not knowing.”
To strengthen resilience, we externalize the
pathology by telling families that their distress
is not their fault (Boss, 2006; White & Epston,
1990). Symptoms are attributed not to indi-
vidual or family dysfunction but rather to an
external dysfunction—the context of ambiguity
surrounding the loss. Families feel relieved
when guilt is lifted and thus are more likely to
accept support.
For clinicians trained to focus on medical
symptoms, ambiguous loss theory provides a
new lens for intervention (Boss, 2004b). To
help, six guidelines were proposed for increas-
ing resilience in the face of ambiguous loss:
(i) finding meaning, (ii) adjusting mastery, (iii)
reconstructing identity, (iv) normalizing ambiva-
lence, (v) revising attachment, and (vi) discover-
ing new hope (Boss, 2006). For more details on
each guideline, see Boss (2006), but meanwhile,
more to the aim of this article, how did I come
274
up with this idea of ambiguous loss? What was
the context? What was the process?
The Story of Ambiguous Loss
Looking back, I suspect my curiosity about
ambiguous loss began when I was a child in the
1930s. It was the time of the Great Depression,
and I lived in an extended immigrant family on
a southern Wisconsin farm. We were poor but
happy. Our family consisted of parents, four chil-
dren, my mother’s mother and brothers, “hired
man” and “hired girl,” and often boys from town
who were in trouble for minor infractions and
in need of guidance, which my good parents
provided.
Most relevant, however, for our topic, is the
fact that I grew up around a father and mater-
nal grandmother who were often pining for
their respective families back in Switzerland. I
watched my father mourn deeply after the death
of his beloved mother in Bern, Switzerland, and
then over the years, his seven siblings. I knew
none of them but could see how close he was to
them despite being thousands of miles away. His
mind was often with them, across the Atlantic,
even though he was physically with us in Wis-
consin. Once, when I was older, I overheard him
telling a young student from Switzerland who
had come for his counsel that he should not stay
in America longer than 3 months or he would
never again know where home was. I have never
forgotten those words.
My maternal grandmother was also torn
between two families, but she manifested this
in another way. She refused to learn English
because she said (in her Swiss dialect, which I
had to learn to communicate with her) that she
had “lost” her mother, her home, the mountains,
and her friends back in Glarus, Switzerland,
and so she would not also lose her language.
She was often sad. The village doctor called it
melancholia, a condition he said was common
among the immigrants in my hometown because
so many were separated from loved ones far
away (Boss, 1996; Schindler, 1954). Early on,
I sensed this yearning for the loss of homeland
and family; it was all around me—in my home
and in the Swiss American community of New
Glarus, Wisconsin, where we lived. No wonder
I became curious about ambiguous loss.
In the 1940s, as World War II raged on,
surrounding the borders of neutral Switzerland,
I became even more aware of such loss. Because
Journal of Family Theory & Review
of censors, only a few transatlantic letters got
through, but two managed to arrive. One was
from my Swiss grandmother to my father. Read-
ing it years later, I saw that it reflected what I
then sensed: that they were during the duration
of World War II psychologically present for one
another even though physically cut off (Boss,
1993).
In 1942, she wrote:
Meine Lieben: Finally a few lines from me. I had
the blues badly today. I was longing for my dear
ones far away . . . . I think of you every day. You
have two big girls now [one was me]. I wish I
could see them . . . . May God protect you always,
Mother. (Boss, 1993, pp. 372–373)
In a 1943 letter, she wrote:
Meine Lieben: I am asked by your brothers and
sisters if I have any news from you. After such a
long silence, we are longing for a letter from you
and to find out how you are doing . . . . Even if it is
not possible to write, I am with you at all times …
in my thoughts. I am sure you have two big sons
by now. I wish I could see them in person. Many
times, I take the pictures out of the drawer to just
look at them. Write as soon as you can. May God
protect you always, Mother. (Boss, 1993, p. 373)
More pertinent perhaps for our discussion
here were the research advances made during
World War II that affected theory development
in the family studies field. In 1936, Alan Turing
made a machine that was the precursor of com-
puters as we know them today (Hodges, 2014).
His lifework from 1936 to 1954, along with that
of Hewlett and Packard and a barrage of oth-
ers, set off the explosion of computer technology
from 1940 to 1950, which then led to our field’s
preference for quantification. I was told that the
case study approach of the 1930s Depression-era
family research was no longer acceptable. From
then on into the 1950s, the dominant theory
and methods in family social science and family
sociology were based on the quantifiable roles
of structure functionalism and measured numer-
ically via computer analysis. As late as 1973, I
was told that if a phenomenon could not be quan-
tified, it did not exist.
Also important during World War II was the
fact that many small-group researchers (Talcott
Parsons and Robert Bales, among others) trans-
ferred their research to the military, much of it
with bomber crews. Their work became known
Theory Development: The Story of Ambiguous Loss
as “cockpit dynamics” (Milanovich, Driskell,
Stout, & Salas, 1998). Back then, it was found
that small groups functioned best if there was
an “instrumental leader” (to connect to the out-
side world and to see that tasks were fulfilled)
and an “expressive leader” (to care for peo-
ple and their emotions inside the group). After
the war, the researchers returned to their uni-
versities and began transferring findings about
optimal small-group functioning to what then
became the “normal American family” (Par-
sons, 1965; Parsons & Bales, 1955). The major
flaw in this idea, perhaps influenced by the
Freudian psychology of the day, was that the
two family leadership roles were split by gen-
der: the husband-father was to be the instru-
mental leader; the wife-mother was to be the
expressive leader. Her role was in the home
while her husband’s place was in the outside
world at work (Boss & Thorne, 1989; Osmond
& Thorne, 1993). This family model dominated
after the war and into the 1950s and 1960s,
when its rigidity and sexism were heavily crit-
icized. Today, the historian Stephanie Coontz
(1992) has documented that this model of the
isolated nuclear family with rigidly prescribed
sex roles was an aberration of postwar America
and not found in any other period in the history
of family.
In 1952, I began studying children and fami-
lies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, but
what I was learning did not fit the family I knew.
Aside from being extended, parental roles were
not prescribed by gender. My mother made the
wine; my father sang to us. My mother helped in
the fields; my father often took care of us when
we were sick or hurt, as his Swiss mother had
taught him homeopathy. I was curious and kept
studying. The behemoth campus in Madison
was freeing. New ideas! New people! And yet
the traditional mores in my community—kinder,
kirche, und küche (children, church, and
kitchen)—pulled at me. In 1953, I moved
back to my hometown, married my high school
sweetheart, commuted to complete my bach-
elor’s degree, then raised two children and
helped cook church suppers, but never gave
up hope of returning to the University of
Wisconsin–Madison campus for more learning.
In the decade of the 1960s, I was quietly at
home, raising two dear children and out of the
loop for the decade of rebellion and change.
Meanwhile, in the nation and on campus, a lot
was happening—civil rights protests, antiwar
275
protests, the burning of draft cards, the feminist
movement, and the beginning of the gay rights
movement. Being miles away from campus, I
witnessed history being made—on TV.
A decade later, in the 1970s, when my chil-
dren were in school and with the help of my par-
ents who cared for them after school, I was once
again on the road to Madison, this time to earn
a master’s degree. My thesis research involved
three generations of Swiss American and Amish
women and girls (Boss, 1971). Research was
exciting so I decided to keep going.
I was majoring in child development and fam-
ily studies but took coursework across campus,
notably a theory-building seminar from Jerald
Hage in sociology. I wrote a paper on father
absence in intact families—a phenomenon I
observed in a family therapy clinic in psychia-
try. It was still the 1970s when a father routinely
complained that the children were their mother’s
concern, so why did he need to be there? Didn’t
we know that he needed to be at work? Gender
roles were still rigidly split into public versus pri-
vate, and the fatherhood movement had not yet
been born.
In 1973, then a doctoral student, I presented
my first conference paper, “Psychological Father
Absence in Intact Families,” at the National
Council on Family Relations annual meeting.2
Afterward, I was offered the opportunity by
Hamilton McCubbin and Edna Hunter, from
the Center of Prisoner of War Studies in San
Diego, who were present at my presentation,
to interview wives of pilots still missing in
action from the Vietnam War (see Boss, 1986).
Although I was a student at the University of
Wisconsin–Madison, the center had assigned its
consultant, Reuben Hill, to meet with me. For the
rest of his life, Dr. Hill was a valued mentor (see
Boss, 2002c, on our last meeting). He noticed my
dissatisfaction with existing family theories. The
isolated nuclear family was a foreign idea to me;
so was the Duvall and Hill (1945) model of nor-
mal family development (Boss, 1980a). Dr. Hill
and I debated often, yet he continued to support
my ideas. I shall never forget that.
Meanwhile, the University of Wisconsin–
Madison students continued to challenge every-
thing, including family theories that did not
2 Its
publication, which did not come until 1986, is titled
“Psychological Absence in the Intact Family: A Systems
Approach to the Study of Fathering.”
276
reflect racial and gender equality. I knew the
tide had shifted as even my mention of the term
role was being challenged. It was freeing. Hill
recommended I read Erving Goffman, a sym-
bolic interactionist more attuned to the protests
of the 1970s.
Goffman’s book Frame Analysis (1974)
inspired me. What he meant by frame was the
bracketing or the putting in order of a person’s
experience. (I thought of meaning.) Whether
one’s experience was ordinary or full of confu-
sion, Goffman’s (1974) premise was that frame
could be analyzed by asking, “What is going on
here?” (p. 8)—and the answer would reveal the
structure (frame) of that person’s experience.
In hindsight, I realize that in all my years as a
family therapist, working with families experi-
encing ambiguous loss, the question I ask most
often is, “What does this mean to you?” There
is the echo of Goffman.
Yet Goffman inspired me more by what he
left unsaid. In the index of Frame Analysis was
the term boundary ambiguities (Goffman, 1974,
p. 578), but he never used the term or discussed
it in his text. More important, Goffman never
addressed the lack of frame that families of the
missing might endure—but he did discuss what I
thought were lesser ambiguities. He wrote, “We
often give over to specialists the task of clearing
up an ambiguity of frame.” For example, “when
a man dies during a bar fight, we call in a medical
examiner” to verify the facts of death (Goffman,
1974, p. 303). I saw this as an example of how
social frame shields people from having to deter-
mine the fact and finality of death themselves.
Although Goffman recognized the problem
of missing persons, he naively assumed that
families would shortly have an answer, a frame.
He wrote:
The sudden disappearance of an individual also
leaves matters fully up in the air until he can be
found. Incidentally, this latter source of ambiguity
is very much limited by the retrieval machinery we
have for persons, this making it very difficult for
them to disappear from everyone’s view, although
disappearance from the view of family and friends
is not so uncommon. When it appears that an
individual has suffered foul play, it is important to
discover his remains, unsettling as this may be, not
merely so that they can be given a decent burial, but
so that issues of frame can be decently put to rest.
(Goffman, 1974, pp. 307–308)
Journal of Family Theory & Review
Now this caught my eye! Goffman did not
consider “issues of framing” that are never put
to rest. And that is the hardest part. What
he referred to as “puzzlement” is often never
cleared up for families (p. 302). With ambiguous
loss, there is, all too often, no “retrieval machin-
ery.”
Acutely aware of this missing piece because I
was at the time interviewing wives of pilots still
missing in action, I knew I was on the right track
for my dissertation research. These wives and
children suffered because there were no “spe-
cialists” in our society to “frame” their “puz-
zlement.” Instead, they alone were required to
initiate the phone call and paperwork to request
a change in their husband’s status from “miss-
ing” to “killed.” Many told me they felt as if they
would be “killing” their husband with this act.3
I then linked the lack of frame with ambiguous
loss. My committee members, however, except
for Carl Whitaker, wanted simplification with
quantification, so boundary ambiguity became
the focus (Boss, 1975a, 1977, 1980a; see also
Boss, Greenberg, & Pearce-McCall, 1990, and
the website www.ambiguousloss.com for Mea-
surement of Boundary Ambiguity in Families).4
I knew there was more, but I could wait.
While doing this research, pioneer family
therapist Whitaker asked me to be his cothera-
pist on a case that continued for a year and a half.
From him, I learned about intuition, paradox,
and the symbolic (Boss, 1987b, 1995). About
the psychological family, I saw that it was real.
About ambiguous loss, I saw its pain. Whitaker
became my right-brain mentor.
In 1975, I finished my dissertation, “Psy-
chological Father Absence and Presence: A
Theoretical Formulation for an Investigation into
Family Systems Pathology”; earned a doctorate
from the University of Wisconsin–Madison;
started life as an assistant professor there; and
received tenure in 1980. In 1981, with my
children in college, I moved to the University
of Minnesota, where my research focused on
Type 2 ambiguous loss—psychological absence
with physical presence, caused by the dementia
3 More recently, I heard this same expression from a
woman whose husband vanished at sea (Boss & Carnes,
2012). We also hear similar expressions in the media from
families of the people who vanished without a trace on
Malaysia Airlines flight 370.
4 Jane Allen Pilavin, chair; Bert Adams; William Mar-
shall; Kathryn Beach; and Carl Whitaker.
Theory Development: The Story of Ambiguous Loss
and memory loss of Alzheimer’s disease (Boss,
Caron, & Horbal, 1988; Boss, Caron, Horbal,
& Mortimer, 1990). My team and I surveyed
family caregivers and also organized family
meetings (videotaped) to study their perceptions
about living with a loved one who has dementia.
Family was self-defined, so meetings often
included multiple generations and sometimes
a friend or neighbor. These meetings were not
family therapy, but they were therapeutic.
After the decade of the 1980s, which focused
almost totally on the psychological type of
ambiguous loss (from dementia), family ther-
apists began noticing my work. Froma Walsh
and Monica McGoldrick invited me to write
a chapter for their now-classic book Living
Beyond Loss: Death in the Family (Boss, 1991,
2004a). “Ambiguous Loss” became my chapter
title, and later, in 1999, with Harvard University
Press, my book title. Ambiguous loss was then
a new term in the lexicon of psychology, sociol-
ogy, and family therapy (Boss 1999), nationally
and internationally.5
Today, I continue to train and mentor fam-
ily therapists, researchers, and other profession-
als as they work with individuals and families
around the world who suffer with various kinds
of ambiguous loss. At age 81, my role now is to
mentor, encourage, and cheer on this new gener-
ation of scholars who are improving the theory
of ambiguous loss. To them, I say thank you.
Theory Updates
First, humanitarian field workers for the Interna-
tional Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have
been testing the theory’s usefulness in Eastern
cultures (see Hollander, 2016; Robins, 2016).
Thus far, ambiguous loss theory has been sup-
ported in Eastern cultures with one correction:
The guideline “Tempering Mastery” (i.e., low-
ering the need to be in control of one’s life)
needs to be changed to adjusting mastery (i.e.,
5 Ambiguous Loss (Harvard University Press, 1999)
translations: Chinese; Taiwan Chinese; German (C. H.
Beck, 2000, Munich); Japanese (Gakubun-Sha, 2005,
Tokyo); Marathi (Mehta, 2006, Maharashtra, India); Span-
ish (Gedisa, 2001, Barcelona). Loss, Trauma, and Resilience
(Norton, 2006) translations: German (Klett-Cotta, 2008,
Stuttgart, Germany); Japanese (Seishin Shobo, 2015,
Tokyo). Loving Someone Who Has Dementia (Jossey-Bass,
2011) translations: German (Ruffer & Rub, 2014, hardcover;
2015, audiobook; Zurich); Norwegian (in press).
277
either increasing or decreasing one’s sense of
mastery), depending on cultural assumptions of
agency. For example, many of the wives of miss-
ing men in Eastern patriarchal cultures needed
more mastery, not less (see Robins, 2010, 2013).
On the basis of this finding, I have here and in
recent writings updated the title of this guideline
to “Adjusting Mastery.”
Second, we found in Japan, as we did with
9/11 families in New York (Boss, Beaulieu,
Wieling, Turner, & LaCruz, 2003) that, in
addition to professionals, community leaders
and paraprofessionals could also understand
and apply the theory of ambiguous loss. After
the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami
in northeast Japan, I have been training (first
directly and now via Skype) family therapists,
social workers, nurses, and psychologists,
who then train local family helpers from the
Fukushima region (Boss & Ishii, 2015). For
example, a Japanese psychiatrist and a family
therapist translated Boss (2006) to bring its
stress-based approach to the tsunami area (see
Boss, 2015b). The theory is proving useful at
various levels because its focus is on stress
rather than on pathology and because it allows
for shaping interventions to fit a local culture
where teachers and paraprofessionals work
more directly with children and families than do
psychologists or psychiatrists. Although more
research is needed, we see once again that if
theory is understandable, more people are able
to use it to help at the local level. In this context,
a theoretical framework that is easily understood
and parsimonious is especially important.
Theoretical Clarifications
For this article, I reviewed my own writings
from the 1970s to the present. This body of
work reveals a pattern of curiosity and study
that evolved from psychological father absence
in intact families (1973, 1975a, 1977) to physi-
cal father absence in families of missing (1975a,
1975b, 1977), to ambiguity of frame and ambi-
guity of boundary (1977, 1980a), to bound-
ary ambiguity (Boss & Greenberg, 1984), and
finally to writings explicitly about ambiguous
loss (1988–present). I noticed, however, that
early in the process, there were two examples of
imprecise terms.
278
Ambiguity Versus Ambivalence
First, in Boss (1977), the concepts of ambiguity
and ambivalence were blurred. My subsequent
writings differentiated the two terms, but to
clarify here: Ambiguous loss and ambivalence
are neither synonymous nor interchangeable.
In the theory of ambiguous loss, ambivalence
means conflicted emotions such as love and
hate, whereas ambiguity means a lack of clar-
ity or simply being unclear (see articles by
Boss from 1980 to present; for a summary, see
Boss, 2006).
Although ambiguity and ambivalence are
very different constructs, they are theoretically
linked: Ambiguous loss (in the relational sense)
leads to ambivalence (in the social sense). That
is, the lack of clarity (ambiguity) surrounding
a loss leads to conflicted feelings and emo-
tions (ambivalence) about that missing person
(Boss & Kaplan, 2004). A frequent example
of ambivalence resulting from a situation of
ambiguous loss is the wish for “it to be over”
and then feeling guilty for having that wish.
Why? Wishing for “it” to be over is construed as
wishing the missing person were dead. The con-
flicted feelings (wishing for death and wishing
for life) create a level of guilt and anxiety that
often becomes overwhelming. If so, we recom-
mend professional treatment and talking with
peers to normalize the ambivalent feelings—but
not harmful actions.
Ambiguous Loss Versus Boundary Ambiguity
The second example of blurring terms in the
early 1970s concerned ambiguous loss and
boundary ambiguity (Boss, 1977). In hind-
sight, I had not yet clarified the difference for
myself—perhaps because of the need to quan-
tify roles and boundaries rather than study the
more phenomenological construct of ambiguous
loss. By early 1980, however, I had figured it
out. I began to clarify the difference between
ambiguous loss and boundary ambiguity by
classifying “types of stressor events” (clear vs.
ambiguous) (Boss, 1980a; 1988, p. 40) and by
placing the two terms heuristically in an update
of Hill’s (1949) ABC-X family stress frame-
work, now known as the Contextual Model of
Family Stress (Boss, 1987a, 2002c, 2004b; Boss
et al., in press).
From the mid-1980s to the present, the con-
structs of ambiguous loss and boundary ambi-
guity were increasingly clarified (Boss, 1987a,
Journal of Family Theory & Review
1999, 2002a, 2002b, 2002c, 2004a, 2004b, 2006,
2007; Boss et al., in press). Readers are therefore
encouraged to check the later sources, especially
Boss (2006, 2007), and the third edition of Fam-
ily Stress Management (Boss et al., in press).
Readers interested in quantitative measurement
are also encouraged to read Carroll, Olson, and
Buckmiller (2007).
Most gratifying is that recent research on
both concepts—ambiguous loss and boundary
ambiguity—indicates that terms are for the most
part being used correctly. Scholars now know
that ambiguous loss is the stressor event or situ-
ation (A factor), whereas boundary ambiguity is
the perception of that stressor (C factor). (Revisit
Figure 2 and definitions earlier in this article.)
Know that both constructs have merit, but the
one you select depends on your research ques-
tion or practice challenge (see Table 1).
The Crucible of Application
It was not until the terrorist attack on New
York’s World Trade Center Towers on Septem-
ber 11, 2001 that I realized the usefulness of
theory to guide interventions needed swiftly
and in an unfamiliar place. What became the
MN-NY team (Boss, Beaulieu, Wieling, Turner,
& LaCruz, 2003) had only 3 weeks to develop
an intervention to help the families of the union
workers who had serviced and maintained the
twin towers and who were missing. I met with
New York City colleagues. Should we develop
a new intervention on short notice? Or could
we instead apply the theoretical model used for
Minnesota families with psychological ambigu-
ous loss (Boss 1999; Boss, Caron, Horbal, &
Mortimer, 1990; Caron, Boss, & Mortimer,
1999)? If the theory of ambiguous loss was
indeed inclusive and applicable across cultures
and situations, could we not apply it in this new
setting with new families experiencing a new
kind of ambiguous loss? It was a tough test.
With a team of University of Minnesota and
New York therapists, my graduate students, and
language-proficient interns from the Roberto
Clemente Center in Lower Manhattan, the
family- and community-based meetings began
(Boss, 2002a, 2002b, 2004b, 2006; Boss et al.,
2003). Common to all of the family meetings
was this goal: to protect and support the natural
resilience of each individual and family. That
goal required that the theory that guided us be
multicultural because the families we worked
Theory Development: The Story of Ambiguous Loss
Table 1. Differences Between Ambiguous Loss and Boundary Ambiguity
Ambiguous Loss
Definition Event or situation of unclear loss that has no
closure
Theory base Social construction (see Berger &
Luckmann, 1966; Gergen, 2001)
Assessment Qualitative primarily (see Boss, Dahl, &
Kaplan, 1996; Dahl & Boss, 2005; Fravel
& Boss, 1992; Robins, 2010)
Variable Categorical
Goals for treatment Resilience via meaning (both–and thinking)
and intervention
with there came from 60 different countries or
islands and spoke 24 different languages (Boss
et al., 2003).
For the next year and a half, we contin-
ued the family meetings every few months
at the union headquarters building. Families
were self-defined—often with three genera-
tions, sometimes with a friend or neighbor or
clergy—but all considered family. The theory of
ambiguous loss remained our guide, but induc-
tively we discovered what was useful and what
was not. The goal was to strengthen individual
and systemic resilience in order to carry the
stress and anxiety of “not knowing”—perhaps
for a lifetime (Boss, 2012b). Still today, half
the families who lost loved ones on 9/11 do not
have DNA proof of death (Dunlap, 2015).
Out of the crucible of 9/11 emerged a broader
theory of ambiguous loss with six nonlinear
guidelines for intervention based on meaning,
mastery, identity, ambivalence, attachment,
and hope (Boss, 2006). All of these constructs
are redefined to increase one’s tolerance for
ambiguity. Pathology is also redefined—and
reassigned—to an external context. Impor-
tantly, living with ambiguous loss requires
long-term support, so we were pleased to hear
that when the 9/11 project ended, many of the
families, who became acquainted through the
family meetings, continued to meet in their
neighborhoods on their own.
Upon reflection, working in New York after
9/11 with families of the missing moved me
away from the Midwest to an international
community of human suffering—even though it
was still in the United States. In 2006, I wrote:
Working in New York after 9/11 brought me
out of the ivory tower into the community, and
279
Boundary Ambiguity
Perception of event or situation about who is in
or out of the family
Neo–structure functionalism (see Boss, 2007;
Kingsbury & Scanzoni, 1993)
Quantitative (see Boundary Ambiguity Scale in
Boss, Greenberg, & Pearce-McCall, 1990,
and www.ambiguousloss.com)
Continuous
Resilience via structure (roles, membership)
it pushed my thinking and my feelings to the
brink. My experiences with the families of work-
ers who vanished on that terrible day tested my
assumptions—and me—more rigorously than any
research test could have. The challenge was to
apply the theory to this catastrophe and to help this
immensely diverse group of families. The work
was exceedingly difficult those first few weeks and
called for frequent time-outs to reflect. On one of
those early days, I looked out of the window from
the 21st floor of the union building where we were
working with the families. The smoke was still
rising from Ground Zero. I hungered for another
view, but only later did I find a more comforting
view. At a friend’s high-rise home in lower Man-
hattan, in the late afternoon sun, I saw the Statue of
Liberty—the same statue that welcomed my father
and my maternal grandparents into the New York
harbor so long ago. I realized then that I had come
full circle, back to where my family had begun life
in the United States. I felt a deep calm. Hope and
loss had merged for them, and now for me, too.
Out of this new insight, came renewed strength.
Many of the families we worked with had come
to this shore, like my elders, hoping for a bet-
ter life. By uprooting, they, too, had lost con-
tact with parents and siblings. After 9/11, they
faced an ambiguous loss even more horrendous.
Could they regain their resiliency and strength
while being cut off from loved ones in faraway
islands or countries? Thankfully, with family-
and community-based interventions, many have.
(Boss, 2006, pp. xx–xxi)
What was learned from 9/11 is that we
need this new model to understand and treat
the reactions of the majority of families after
large-scale disappearances. Some people need
medical help, but the majority can recover from
a traumatic loss if given intervention of family
and community support (Bonanno, 2004; Boss,
280
2006; Landau & Saul, 2004; Speck & Attneave,
1973).
New Directions and New Propositions
My latest proposition, still untested, is that
symptoms resulting from ambiguous loss are
either the same as, or similar to, those of com-
plicated grief, a disorder based on prolonged
grief from a death (Shear, Boelen, & Neimeyer,
2011). The symptoms of prolonged grief from
ambiguous loss have most often been diagnosed
symptomatically, not contextually, and thus
viewed as pathology or disorder. Even the grief
that lingers from more common ambiguous
losses (e.g., divorce, adoption, immigration) is
viewed as suspect. For these reasons, I propose
that with any ambiguous loss, catastrophic or
common, the pathology lies in the type of loss
(unclear and irresolvable) and not in the family
or individual experiencing it. Said another way,
ambiguous loss is a complicated type of loss
that leads to a complicated type of grief.
That complicated loss leads to complicated
grief is a controversial idea and requires further
research. The propositions above all need test-
ing because new diagnostic guidelines (DSM-5)
appear to be pathologizing grief, especially grief
that is ongoing (American Psychiatric Asso-
ciation, 2013; Boss & Dahl, 2014). Although
some symptoms do need medical attention, the
cause of those symptoms, I propose, is the stress
and trauma from immobilizing ambiguity. Espe-
cially in can-do and mastery-oriented cultures,
the inability to find a solution is a major stres-
sor. To make matters worse, such cultures often
stigmatize people for not finding answers, or clo-
sure. The idea of closure, I propose, is linked to
values of mastery and needing to find answers to
all problems all the time.
Finally, on the basis of the above and my
more than 40 years of being a family therapist,
I propose that closure is a myth. Incessantly
spoken by the media and general public, this
term—closure—and the ideas embedded in it,
will, I propose, erode the resilience of families
suffering from losses, both ambiguous and clear.
For the readers of the Journal of Family Theory
& Review (JFTR), know that the idea of closure
is incompatible with the theory of ambiguous
loss and any words or ideas that smack of the
binary (dead or alive, absent or present) are unac-
ceptable. That’s the point; there is no closure
with ambiguous loss.
Journal of Family Theory & Review
Closure is a good term for real estate and
business deals in which there are true abso-
lutes and clear conclusions, but it is not a valid
term for human relationships (Boss, 2011; Boss
& Carnes, 2012). In my neighborhood in Min-
neapolis, I often see evidence of no closure. At a
Thai restaurant nearby, the owners place a plate
of fresh food for their ancestors in their window
daily. Is that a disorder? No. It simply means that
for them a psychological family exists. As you
may already realize, the idea of closure is anti-
thetical to the idea of a psychological family.
Criteria for Evaluating Family Theory
In this article, I have alluded throughout to the
idea that context influences the process of the-
ory building. Our experiences of time and place
shape our curiosity and thus the research ques-
tions we ask. Theories are a product of who we
are and where we have been.
What I have learned is that we can develop
more useful and inclusive family theories by
focusing on more universal family experience.
Why loss has not been studied more in family
social science is a mystery to me. It may be that
its inevitability makes it too painful to study.
I, too, had second thoughts, for as I did this
work, I lost my little brother, my father, sister,
mother, former husband, and now, most of my
old friends. Surely, this leaves a mark.
Although it is essential to pay attention to
one’s own experience while doing the work of
theory building, there are also objective crite-
ria for evaluating one’s work (e.g., Burr, 1973;
Chafetz, 1978; Hage, 1972; Klein, 1973; Shaw
& Costanzo, 1982). In 1993, this list of 17 crite-
ria was offered for evaluating theory:
1. Richness of ideas
2. Clarity of concepts
3. Coherence of connections among concepts
4. Simplicity or parsimony
5. Clarity of theoretical assumptions and presup-
positions
6. Consistency with its own assumptions and
presuppositions
7. Acknowledgment of its sociocultural context
8. Acknowledgment of underlying values posi-
tions
9. Acknowledgement of theoretical forebears
10. Potential for validation and current level of
validation
11. Acknowledgment of limits and points of
breakdown
 Theory Development: The Story of Ambiguous Loss
12. Complementarity with other theories and lev-
els of explanation
13. Openness to change and modification
14. Ethical implications
15. Sensitivity to pluralistic human experience
16. Ability to combine personal experience and
academic rigor
17. Potential to inform application for education,
therapy, advocacy, social action, or public
policy (Doherty, Boss, LaRossa, Schumm, &
Steinmetz, 1993, pp. 24–26)
And I add one more:
18. Inclusivity and usefulness across cultures,
east and west, north and south. This means
that family theories must accommodate mul-
ticulturalism and families that vary in race,
class, religion, gender, generation, and sexual
orientation.
These 18 criteria are presented as a starting
point for dialogue about the process of theory
development. Readers can decide if the theory
of ambiguous loss is proceeding in the right
direction.
The Limits of Theory
Stephen Hawking aside, a theory cannot include
everything or it is a theory of nothing. Most
recently, a young man asked me if the loss of
his cell phone could be an ambiguous loss. He
knew that attachment was a prerequisite, and I
knew that, for many, the loss of treasured family
items such as photo albums or mementos were
perceived as ambiguous loss. So why not a cell
phone, which the young man said, “has all of my
life on it”? To quote the symbolic interactionist
W. I. Thomas (1928), “If [people] define things
as real, they are real in their consequences”
(p. 572). I believe that. But although perceptions
matter, they are not all that matters (Boss, 1992).
How I answer such questions as this young
man asked depends on the hat I am wearing at
the time. In clinical work, if a client perceives the
loss of an inanimate object—a house, a photo, or
perhaps even a cell phone—as ambiguous loss,
then I proceed within that framework to cocon-
struct their meaning of that loss. If, however,
researchers ask me about studying ambiguous
loss, I advise them to select one that is unequivo-
cally and indisputably ambiguous. For example,
if you are researching ambiguous loss created
by Alzheimer’s disease or autism or brain injury,
281
select a sample of families in which the affected
person has been medically diagnosed as hav-
ing that specific illness or condition under study.
With physical ambiguous loss, select a sample
that has verification from witnesses and officials
who agree that a family member is indeed phys-
ically missing. Verification of ambiguous loss is
necessary to validate that we are studying what
we think we are studying.
Why We Need Family Theory
Theory summarizes disparate information into
a unified whole so that regardless of time and
place, it provides us with more understanding
and direction for the challenge at hand. The
challenge for me has been ambiguous loss.
Today, the theory of ambiguous loss helps
ordinary people as well as professionals and
scholars to understand this heretofore-unnoticed
phenomenon. It helps us to answer the question,
“Why?” Why, given the same stressor, do some
families remain resilient while others collapse?
Why, after loved ones go missing, are some
people debilitated while others grow stronger?
How can we help individuals, couples, and fam-
ilies live well despite ambiguous loss? These
questions have fed my curiosity—and I hope
now yours.
Because of the variation among families
today, we need more middle-range family
theories—theories that consider stressors that
occur across diversities and cultures. Ambigu-
ous loss is just one example. When asked why
I did not consider ambiguous gain, I answered
that loss affected every family at some time
or place, and thus its study was more urgent.
Although I learned that ambiguous loss is the
most stressful of family losses, I also learned
that many individuals and families are amaz-
ingly resilient. There lies the hope and joy in
this work.
Conclusion
I have emphasized that the process of theory
development never ends. This point is tested
by real life as well. After both of my parents
died, and I was emptying their house, I found
my father’s leather wallet. In what was then
called the “secret compartment,” there was a
yellowed photo postcard, cut in half to fit a
wallet. His eldest brother had sent the card to
my father in 1929, after he had immigrated to
282
the United States. On it was the picture of their
home in Burgdorf, Switzerland, where they grew
up, and the bluffs behind the house where they
had played together as boys. I was stunned. My
father had carried this photo, the symbol of his
Swiss home and family, close to him for his
entire life in Wisconsin.
What I had sensed as a child was real and life-
long for my immigrant father. That I lived with
ambiguous loss allowed me to see it—and then
label it. New theories are rarely premeditated;
more often, they are the result of being open to
discovery.
Testing the Theory of Ambiguous Loss: A New
Generation
If family theories are to explain the “why” of
ever-shifting human experience across time and
place, then they need continuous testing in new
times and new places and with new examples
of ambiguous loss. In the past 10 years, studies
testing and applying the theory of ambiguous
loss increasingly include a wider range of popu-
lations: same-sex couples, lesbian couples with
children, international disappearances, immi-
gration, refugee diaspora, military deployment,
Down’s syndrome, mild cognitive impairment,
epilepsy, chronically ill children, autism, mater-
nal depression, stillbirth, and effects on families
after a member transitions to another gender
(for a review, see Boss et al., in press).
For this special issue of JFTR, I am delighted
to introduce to you a new generation of
researchers who are doing just that—studying
different populations, cultures, genders, and
stressor situations ranging from global to local.
The following authors, representing various
disciplines, have applied and tested the theory
of ambiguous loss.
Theo Hollander is the author of “Ambiguous
Loss and Complicated Grief: Understanding the
Grief of Parents of the Disappeared in North-
ern Uganda.” Based on his research in northern
Uganda, he addresses the link and also the essen-
tial difference between ambiguous loss and com-
plicated grief. He is currently working in Burma
(Myanmar). He works with international devel-
opment and studies the complex relations of con-
flict, justice, and gender. With a strong focus on
the impact of armed conflict on affected commu-
nities and individuals, he is currently working as
a peace-building adviser for the Department for
International Development Burma.
Journal of Family Theory & Review
Simon Robins has authored “Discursive
Approaches to Ambiguous Loss: Theorizing
Community-Based Therapy After Enforced
Disappearance,” thus being the first to clarify in
depth the postmodern base of ambiguous loss
theory. He is a humanitarian practitioner and
researcher who focuses on transitional justice,
humanitarian protection, and human rights.
With the ICRC, he has applied the theory of
ambiguous loss to construct more humanitar-
ian and culturally relevant interventions with
families of the missing. This new humanitarian
approach, based on ambiguous loss theory, has
been applied in Nepal and East Timor.
Rose Perez is the author of “Lifelong
Ambiguous Loss: The Case of Cuban American
Exiles.” She applies the theory of ambiguous
to loss of one’s homeland. As a researcher
and educator at Fordham University in New
York City, she focuses on the well-being of
immigrants and refugees in the context of social
services. She uses ambiguous loss theory to
better understand the often lifelong grieving and
yearning of people cut off from their homeland
and family as a result of politically enforced
migration.
Catherine Solheim and Jaime Ballard, coau-
thors of “Ambiguous Loss Due to Separation
in Voluntary Transnational Families,” show
that ambiguous loss exists even with voluntary
migration. This is the inevitable push and pull
of uprooting and moving to a new country.
Their work as family social scientists at the
University of Minnesota focuses on economic
and social decisions in transnational, immigrant
and refugee families, generally Southeast Asian
refugee families including Hmong, Laotian,
Bhutanese, and Karen (from Myanmar).
Monique Mitchell, author of “The Family
Dance: Ambiguous Loss, Meaning Making,
and the Psychological Family in Foster Care,”
applies ambiguous loss theory to frame the
experience of foster children from their own
views. She is the first to acknowledge the grief
of foster children when they are removed from
their own parents and siblings and from subse-
quent foster parents and foster siblings. Trained
in psychology, anthropology, family relations
and human development, and thanatology, her
research at University of South Carolina is
interdisciplinary.
Jenifer McGuire and Jory Catalpa, Univer-
sity of Minnesota; Vanessa Lacey, Transgender
Theory Development: The Story of Ambiguous Loss
Equality Network Ireland (TENI); and Kather-
ine Kuvalanka, Miami University of Ohio are
coauthors of “Ambiguous Loss as a Framework
for Interpreting Gender Transitions in Families.”
Family studies and human development schol-
ars and practitioners, McGuire and her coauthors
conduct community- as well as clinically-based
research on transgender youth. Their work is
situated internationally with studies from the
United States, Ireland, and the Netherlands. In
this issue, they apply the ambiguous loss frame-
work to interpret the complexities of gender tran-
sitions as both ambiguous loss and ambiguous
gain and also affecting both the transitioning
youth and their family.
In “Ambiguous Loss and Emotional Recovery
After Traumatic Brain Injury,” Jeffrey Kreutzer,
Ana Mills, and Jennifer Marwitz illustrate
how family members regain their emotional
strength while a loved one suffers from trau-
matic brain injury (TBI) or other neurological
disorders. They illustrate how the theory of
ambiguous loss influenced their development of
a research-based, manualized intervention for
families where the stressor is Type 2, or psycho-
logical ambiguous loss. Kreutzer is a clinical
psychologist at Virginia Commonwealth Uni-
versity, with specialties in neuropsychology,
rehabilitation psychology, and family therapy.
Finally, I want to thank Ann Masten for her
insightful commentary advancing family and
child theory development across multiple dis-
ciplines. She is the first to reveal so clearly
the common factors across ambiguous loss the-
ory and developmental resilience science. This
parallel development hopefully encourages new
researchers and practitioners to work across dis-
ciplines to understand resilience in families and
children who face adversities that have no clo-
sure. Building on theoretical commonalities, we
strengthen both families and children, who after
all, are inseparable.
It is at the interaction between disciplines that
new discoveries and insights tend to emerge,
but first, it is through broader theoretical discus-
sions that disciplinary borders are softened. That
JFTR is the platform where many of these inter-
disciplinary discussions are now taking place is
thanks to our editor, Libby Blume.
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